Abstract
Mortality crossovers at older ages have been observed when comparing different populations, particularly disadvantaged populations with advantaged populations. A growing body of research indicates that mortality convergences to actual crossovers are real and not a result of overstating of age at the older ages. Only recently have the mortality experiences of Native Americans been compared with those of other Americans; specific Native American tribal populations have not been examined, however. Presented here are the mortality experiences of the Navajo and those of the total U.S. population and U.S. white population since the mid-20th century. Comparison provides further support to findings that convergences and crossovers actually occur between disadvantaged and advantaged populations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Broudy, D.W. & May, P.A. (1983), Demographic and epidemiologic transition among the Navajo Indians, Social Biology 30: 1–16.
Carr, B.A. & Lee, E.S. (1978), Navajo tribal mortality: A life table analysis of the leading causes of death, Social Biology 25: 279–287.
Coale, A.J. & Kisker, E.E. (1986), Mortality crossovers: Reality or bad data? Population Studies 40: 389–401.
Coale, A.J. & Li, S. (1991), The effects of age misreporting in China on the calculation of mortality rates at very high ages, Demography 28: 293–301.
Corti, M.-C., Guralnik, J.M., Ferrucci, L., Izmirlian, G., Havlik, R., Cohen, H. J., Leveille, S.G., Pahor, M. & Pieper, C. (1999), Evidence for a black-white crossover in all-cause and coronary heart disease mortality in an older population: The North Carolina EPESE, American Journal of Public Health 89: 308–314.
Elo, I.T. & Preston, S.H. (1994), Estimating African-American mortality from inaccurate data, Demography 31: 427–458.
Eschbach, K. (1993), Changing identification among American Indians and Alaska Natives, Demography 30: 635–652.
Frost, F. & Shy, K.K. (1980), Racial differences between linked birth and infant death records in Washington state, American Journal of Public Health 70: 974–976.
Goldstein, S. (1996), Changes in Jewish mortality and survival, 1963–1987, Social Biology 43: 72–97.
Hadley, J.N. (1950), Registration of vital events among Indians, Vital Statistics – Special Reports 33: 109–126.
Hahn, R.A. (1992), The state of federal health statistics on racial and ethnic groups, Journal of the American Medical Association 267: 268–271.
Hahn, R.A. (1999), Why race is differentially classified on U.S. birth and infant death certificates: An examination of two hypotheses, Epidemiology 10: 108–111.
Hahn, R.A. & Eberhardt, S. (1995), Life expectancy in four U.S. racial/ethnic populations: 1990, Epidemiology 6: 350–355.
Hahn, R.A., Mulinare, J. & Teutsch, S.M. (1992), Inconsistencies in coding of race and ethnicity between birth and death in US infants: A new look at infant mortality, 1983 through 1985, Journal of the American Medical Association 267: 259–263.
Hahn, R.A., Truman, B.I. & Baker, N.D. (1996), Identifying ancestry: The reliability of ancestral identification in the United States by self, proxy, interviewer, and funeral director, Epidemiology 7: 75–80.
Harris, D. (1994), The 1990 census count of American Indians: What do the numbers really mean? Social Science Quarterly 75:580–593.
Hill, M.E., Preston, S.H. & Rosenwaike, I. (2000), Age reporting among white Americans aged 85+: Results of a record linkage study, Demography 37: 175–186.
Hillery, G.A., Jr. & Essene, F.J. (1963), Navajo population: An analysis of the 1960 census, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 19: 297–313.
Himes, C.L. (1994), Age patterns of mortality and cause-of-death structures in Sweden, Japan, and the United States, Demography 31: 633–650.
Hoffman, F.L. (1896), The race traits and tendencies of the American Negro, Publications of the American Economic Association 11: 1–329.
Howard, C. (1993), Navajo tribal demography, 1983–1986: A comparative and historical perspective. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc.
Hussey, J.M. & Elo, I.T. (1997), Cause-specific mortality among older African-Americans: Correlates and consequences of age misreporting, Social Biology 44: 227–246.
Johansson, S.R. & Preston, S.H. (1978), Tribal demography: The Hopi and Navaho populations as seen through manuscripts from the 1990 census, Social Science History 3: 1–33.
Johnson, N.E. (2000), The racial crossover in comorbidity, disability, and mortality, Demography 37: 267–283.
Johnston, D.F. (1966), An analysis of sources of information on the population of the Navajo. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 197. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Kitagawa, E. & Hauser, P.M. (1973), Differential mortality in the United States: A study in socioeconomic epidemiology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kunitz, S.J. (1983), Disease change and the role of medicine: The Navajo experience. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Kunitz, S.J. & Slocumb, J.C. (1976), The changing sex ratio of the Navajo tribe, Social Biology 23: 33–44.
Liu, X. & Witten, M. (1995), A biologically based explanation for mortality crossover in human populations, Gerontologist 35: 609–615.
Manton, K.G., Poss, S.S. & Wing, S. (1979), The black-white crossover: Investigation from the perspective of the components of aging, Gerontologist 19: 291–300.
Manton, K.G. & Stallard, E. (1981), Methods for evaluating the heterogeneity of aging processes in human populations using vital statistics data: Explaining the black/white mortality crossover by a model of mortality selection, Human Biology 53: 47–67.
Manton, K.G. & Stallard, E. (1984), Recent trends in mortality analysis. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Manton, K.G., Stallard, E. & Vaupel, J.W. (1981), Methods for comparing the mortality experience of heterogeneous populations, Demography 18: 389–410.
Morgan, K. (1973), Historical demography of a Navajo community, pp. 263–314 in M.H. Crawford & P.L. Workman (eds.), Methods and theories of anthropological genetics. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.
Myers, R.J. (1964), Analysis of mortality in the Soviet Union according to 1958–1959 life tables, Transactions of the Society of Actuaries 16, Pt. 2: 309–317.
Myers, R.J. & Bayo, F. (1965), Mortality of workers entitled to old-age benefits under OASDI, Transactions of the Society of Actuaries 17: 417–431.
Nam, C.B. (1995), Another look at mortality crossovers, Social Biology 42: 133–142.
Nam, C.B., Weatherby, N.L. & Ockay, K.A. (1978), Causes of death which contribute to the mortality crossover effect, Social Biology 25: 306–314.
(The) Navajo Yearbook of Planning in Action. (1954), Report No. IV. Washington, D.C.: Department of Interior.
Olshansky, S.J. (1995), Mortality crossovers and selective survival in human and nonhuman populations. Introduction: New developments in mortality, Gerontologist 35: 583–587.
Passel, J.S. (1976), Provisional evaluation of the 1970 census count of American Indians, Demography 13: 397–409.
Passel, J.S. & Berman, P.A. (1985), An assessment of the quality of 1980 census data for American Indians. Paper presented at the meetings of the American Statistical Association. Las Vegas.
Passel, J.S. & Berman, P.A. (1986), Quality of 1980 census data for American Indians, Social Biology 33: 163–182.
Pearl, R. (1922), The biology of death. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott Company.
Preston, S.H., Elo, I.T., Rosenwaike, I. & Hill, M. (1996), African-American mortality at older ages: Results of a matching study, Demography 33: 193–209.
Rodgers, L. (ed.) (1993), 1990 census, population and housing characteristics of The Navajo Nation. Window Rock, AZ: Division of Community Development, The Navajo Nation.
Rosenwaike, I. (1979), A new evaluation of United States census data on the extreme aged, Demography 16: 279–288.
Schoen, R. (1976), Measuring mortality trends and differentials, Social Biology 23: 235–243.
Shoemaker, N. (1999), American Indian population recovery in the twentieth century. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.
Snipp, C.M. (1986), Who are American Indians? Some observations about the perils and pitfalls of data for race and ethnicity, Population Research and Policy Review 5: 237–252.
Spiegelman, M. (1948), The longevity of Jews in Canada, 1940–1942, Population Studies 2: 292–304.
Spiegelman, M. (1967), Why do these mortality curves cross? New York Statistic 18: 8.
Support Services International, Inc. (1996), Adjusting for miscoding of Indian race on state death certificates. Final report: Methodology for adjusting IHS mortality data for inconsistent classification of race-ethnicity of American Indians and Alaskan Natives between state death certificates and IHS patient registration records, Submitted to the Division of Program, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Legislation, Indian Health Service, November, 1996, Washington, D.C.
Thornton, R. (1987), American Indian holocaust and survival: A population history since 1492. Norman,OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
Thornton, R. (1997), Tribal membership requirements and the demography of & #x201C;old & #x201D; and & #x201C;new & #x201D; Native Americans, Population Research and Policy Review 16: 33–42.
Thornton, R. (2000), Population history of North American Indians, pp. 9–50 in: M.R. Haines & R.H. Steckel (eds.), A population history of North America. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Thornton, R. (2002), Health, disease, and demography, pp. 68–84 in P.J. Deloria & N. Salisbury (eds.), A companion to Native American history. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Thornton, R. (n.d.), The mortality crossover at the older ages: Native American and white and African American age-specific mortality rates, circa 1995. Unpublished paper. University of California at Los Angeles, Department of Anthropology.
Thornton, R.G. & Nam, C.B. (1968), The lower mortality rates of nonwhites at the older ages: An enigma in demographic analysis, Research Reports in Social Science 11: 1–18.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau. (2001), Overview of race and Hispanic origin: Census 2000 brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau. (2002), Census 2000 PHC-T-18. American Indian and Alaskan Native tribes in the United States: 2000. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service. (n.d.), Life expectancy. Data years: 1994–1996. Rockville, MD: Program Statistics Team, Demographic Statistics Team.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service. (1997), Life tables for the American Indian and Alaskan Native IHS service population by IHS area and sex, 1991–1993 with comparable data for the U.S. all races, white, and black populations, 1992. Rockville, MD: Division of Program Statistics.
U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service. (1966), Vital and health statistics data from the national vital statistics system. Mortality trends in the United States 1954–1963. Washington, D.C.: National Center for Health Statistics.
U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Tribal Services. (n.d.), 1999 labor market information on the Indian labor force: A national report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Young, R.W. (ed.) (1957), The Navajo yearbook. Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Agency.
Young, R.W. (ed.) (1958), The Navajo Yearbook. Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Agency.
Young, T.K. (1994), The health of Native Americans: Toward a biocultural epidemiology. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Thornton, R. The Navajo–U.S. Population Mortality Crossover since the Mid-20th Century. Population Research and Policy Review 23, 291–308 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:POPU.0000034094.47041.52
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:POPU.0000034094.47041.52